The "Other" Hot Reuben Dip

With all due respect to and admiration for those who came before me - this is THE best Hot Reuben Dip out there.

You could, if you wanted to but I'm not recommending you do if you have a weak heart, use it to top a baked potato and call it dinner.

This is my Hot Reuben Dip recipe - Dip Reuben a la City Girl, if you please.

I doubled it for our Superbowl party, served it with toasted cocktail rye bread and it vanished.

I'll never make another hot dip again. Sayonara, Spinach and Artichoke dip. Adios, Velveeta-Rotel Dip-o. (Yes, we actually eat that - it's football food - stop wincing).

Hot Reuben Dip

8 oz Cream Cheese

1/2 cup Sour Cream

1 cup Drained Sauerkraut

2 tbsps Worcestershire Sauce

1/4 cup Milk

1 cup+ Chopped Dried Corned Beef (I use a package of Buddig instead of the jar)

Loosely combine all ingredients in a bowl. Microwave for 3 minutes or until cream cheese softens. Stir to combine. Microwave another 2 minutes - 4 minutes until hot. Stir.

Mixture will appear thin, but it thickens as it cools.

Serve with toasted cocktail rye slices.

Serves 1 - 12 as an appetizer, entree or breakfast hangover remedy.

More Mustard Madness

Sometimes this gets scary.

If you said...Okay I need two people. I need them from OPPOSITE backgrounds, family life, geography, upbringing and general LIFE issues...then you would have City Girl and me.

Totally opposite from where we come from.

And then stuff like this happens all the time.

We do IDENTICAL things, like...totally off-the-wall IDENTICAL things.

This is MY mustard drawer. One drawer. JUST for mustards. And hey, I'VE got the yellow stuff. Because little kids will do that to you.

Mikey hates everything...

...but the people in this house will eat ANYTHING.

I have this for breakfast say, four mornings a week. Keeping in mind I don't have to go to a job, I eat mid-morning. And I snack a time or two but my next meal is supper because THIS makes me happy. It also works for ANYTIME...late supper, rushed supper, weekend lunch.

Garlic, Red Pepper and Sundried Tomato Pasta

Put water on to boil for the pasta...your favorite type is what's called for here...I use linguine. In an omelet pan, or such, pour 1/4 cup olive oil. When it heats up, add one heaping tablespoon garlic and one heaping tablespoon chopped sundried tomatoes. (I'm currently using sundried tomato tapenade and LOVING it.) Sprinkle in red pepper flakes...your taste determines how much. Cook over medium heat until the garlic is lightly browned.

This brings us to a point a friend of mine made last week. We were talking about something...a chef or cooking school or whatever and she explained that whomever we were talking about had stressed that you only cook garlic until it is fragrant...never more. Well, that raven don't fly here. In some dishes, just fragrant is good. But in THIS case, I LIKE my garlic browned. I like the bitter edge.

SO. Cook the pasta while the garlic browns. When the pasta is done, turn the tomato-garlic oil up to high, dump the pasta into a strainer and let most of the water run out. Then turn around and, with the water still dripping, dump the pasta into the oil. Turn off the stove-eye and fold the pasta to mix it with the oil and goodies and cook off the last of the cooking water. Portion it into your dish and top with blue cheese sprinkles.

This justifies a glass of red wine with breakfast.

A little explanation of our quirks and foibles

Posting the Red Beans and Rice, I realized that I am "assuming" (and we all know THAT little saying) things that might just not be obvious.

City Girl and I cook for fun, entertainment and to satisfy one of the original seven sins. And in our world recipes are...guidelines. They are NOT cast-in-stone directions but maps, and you just feel perfectly free to find your own way.

I LOVE frozen seasoning blend. This is chopped onion, bell pepper and celery, sold in bags in the frozen vegetables section. I REALLY love frozen seasoning blend. One, things sit around here and get lost and then when I need them, I can't find them. Or two, things sit around here and get lost and when I find them they have...morphed. Into moldy, moving things. FSB can be counted on to be sitting there, in the freezer, fresh and tasty and ALREADY CUT UP. There's a lot to be said for that. Having made that statement...if the stuff is here and I have the time, I'll chop and dice. (Reference the cast-in-stone thing.) I've wasted too much of my life waiting until things were "just right"...now I realize that if you can't chop fresh onions, prepackaged make the trip just as much fun.

I have an issue with recipes that unnecessarily call for portions of prepackaged foods. DON'T ask for 12 ounces of tomatoes if it's a 14-ounce can...that's just dumb. UNLESS that two ounces is REALLY going to make that much difference but...it usually won't. So if there's an item listed in a recipe and it doesn't work for you? Experiment. How wrong can you go? (Having said that I'm gonna tell you right off the bat...you can't substitute wax paper for parchment paper when you're baking bread. You can go REALLY wrong.)

All seasonings are to taste. When we make cheese straws for home, we use one tablespoon of cayenne. When we make them for public consumption? One teaspoon does it. Use YOUR judgement, YOUR taste and YOUR family's expectations. There's a lot of wiggle room out there.

Also, there are NO food snobs here. My favorite cheese is Explorateur and I have to drive to Birmingham to buy it, but my favorite afternoon snack is a bean burrito with no red sauce from Taco Bell. Eighty-nine cents and throw in a large, unsweetened tea and you eat for two-and-a-quarter. Can't beat that!